Friday, January 31, 2003

Computer Data Security

I'm mildly concerned about data privacy. Especially since I often travel with a laptop that also has my personal financial software installed. Plus, there's the lists of passwords to various web sites or services, my personal information such as resume, work history. Basically, a bunch of information, that - should it be stolen - would severely compromise my security (financial mostly).

So, I make use of an encrypted volume on my laptop - which is a virtual disk drive that encrypts everything that gets stored on it. In order to access the contents of this volume, you must enter a key or a pass-phrase. The nice part about virtual encrypted disks is that they are transparent to the end-user. Once you mount the encrypted volume, it's just like having another hard drive connected to your computer.

For the longest time, I used PGPDisk (comes with PGPDesktop), but when NAI stopped supporting PGP - it didn't work well with WindowsXP - so I was forced to look for an alternative. So now I'm using DriveCrypt which serves me very well, although I'm very tempted to go back to PGPDesktop v8.0 now that it supports WindowsXP.

One of the tips I have for folks just getting into encrypted volumes is that they create the volume of a size small enough to be written off to CD-R media whenever they feel the need to backup the contents of the volume. In PGPDisk, this means creating your volumes as a 695Mb FAT32 disk. That way, you can unmount the encrypted volume, write it to a CD-R and store it in your safe-deposit box (or safe, or laying on the counter) and be content not only knowing that your files are now backed up - but that nobody else can swipe the CD-R and get at your personal data. (PGPDisk has been around long-enough that I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to read the contents of my encrypted disk volumes 10 years from now.)

Links:

Computer Data Security - ARC on Computer Security

PGP Desktop - I recommend this highly, especially PGPDisk

PGP Freeware - good for personal use when you just want to encrypt files and e-mail messages

DriveCrypt - another excellent tool along the lines of PGPDisk

GnuPG - open-source alternative to PGP

BCWipe - free space disk wiper

The other thing that I recommend is to get a tool that lets you schedule a free-space wipe on a daily basis. This ensures that any temporary or deleted files don't leave behind fragments that can be read back off of the disk by forensic tools (if you're not afraid of the gov't, maybe you should worry about the identity thief who also has access to such tools). The recommendation for commercial-grade security is to over-write each free segment 9 times in order to assure that you can't use advanced techniques to read the "ghost" imprints left behind. So, if you're only over-writing your free-space once a month, you should use the 3x or 9x options - but if you schedule to run the wipe daily (usually while you sleep) - you may be able to getaway with a 1x or 2x option (since you're doing it day after day after day - all those days of 1x or 2x will add up after a while).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 2:31 PM

EQ Expansion Fatigue

Expansion fatigue is the idea that too many expansions, in too short of a time frame leaves your customers without the time required to become comfortable with the changes in their virtual world that occur with each expansion.

As a result, the average customer begins to feel overwhelmed by the rapidly increasing quantity of content (that is expanding faster then they can chew through it) -- which can leave one feeling a bit daunted, or feeling like you're running on a treadmill, getting nowhere but further behind. After all, if you can't chew through the content that you already have and become comfortable with it - why buy the next expansion or the one after that? It also makes the average customer begin to feel that there is weight behind the rumors that the company producing the title only cares about revenues, not whether the customers are enjoying the game.

I forget all of the key dates in EQ's history, but the cycle has sped up (used to be one expansion per year, which gave the population plenty of time to experience it, grow comfortable with it, etc., even if they only played a few hours per week). However, this last expansion, LoY comes out only 4-5 months after PoP, which was only 9 months after SoL. The average EQ player was just getting into places like the Grey, Scarlet Desert, and Umbral Plains (the last zones before you hit the top level zones in SoL) about 9 months after SoL came out.

Sure, the uber guilds and folks that play 80+ hours per week were well and done with places like Vex Thal, Ssra Temple, Sanctus Seru - but the rest of us were still trying to keep our heads above water with the massive shifts in game content when SoL was released and later when the Bazaar feature finally went live. Then comes PoP, which is geared towards the folks 55+, again with broad ramifications for the rest of the environment (insta-portals, all old-world spells being purchasable, multiple tiers of new zones, new equipment that put old equipment to shame, new AA skills to be figured out, new levels (61-65) and new spells for the 61+ crowd. Plus the raid window and the dozens of other small changes made during last fall.

That's a lot of new information and changes within a short amount of time (the past 6 months). Then, before you can catch your breath and get comfortable with the lay of the new world - they release yet another expansion only 4 months after PoP went live (LoY). Again, with even more new features (LFG window, larger bank space, spells, AA abilities, zones, equipment, froglok playable race)... when most folks are still struggling to come to grips with the changes of the past 6 months.

Ever heard the phrase "learn to pace yourself"? How about "stop the world, I want to get off"? Hmmm, I choose to get off here thank-you-very-much and currently have no plans to purchase LoY (actually, I haven't even logged in to play since early-December).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:19 PM

Metabolic Bill Due

Ugh... I got through yesterday on 3 hours of sleep and a lot of coffee and caffiene (had to drive 2.5hrs to a meeting in Philadelphia).

Well, today the bill for all that has come due in spades... I might feel human in another hour or three as I limit myself to just 2 cups of coffee today.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:52 AM

Dreams

Okay, last night's dreams were a bit on the wild side. Let's see if I can lay all this out before it fades.

The location seemed to be some foreign planet in a far away star system, almost a mirror image of earth, complete with NYC, mass transit, crowded noisy streets. Somehow I had gotten trapped there, but they were getting ready to send me back to pickup supplies, etc... The transport system consisted of a small box that emited a telporation beam (some sort of high-energy particles) that bounced me to an intermediate point in the galaxy where I had to choose my destination, including time (time-travel? huh). However, we were being shadowed by an organization who were trying to discover and destroy (sieze?) all of these teleporation devices, so there was some scurrying about - searching for other teleporation devices. We were ahead, but barely so, finding teleporation devices shortly before the agents that were on our trail would catch up and destroy places that we had discovered.

The scenario's were rather elaborate, and the plot held together for a long time - which seems unusual for a dream. I really wasn't surprised that my 2 co-workers were involved (also on the run with me, trying to get home to mother earth) - but the appearance of my last girlfriend was interesting. Apparently my subconscious thinks that I should attempt (or desires) to patch up that relationship, ask for forgiveness and then see what happens. (I saw cats that I used to know - Pica and Kisu, but not Magic.)

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:33 AM

Monday, January 27, 2003

DNS Querying

One of the more frequent tools that I use when troubleshooting mail delivery issues is checking DNS records (preferably using DIG):

Demon Internet DIG Tool - the easiest to use.

AnalogX - gives more low-level information.

Webmaster-Toolkit.com - only returns the name server addresses.

Demon Internet - has more options, returns mail server information.

dev:Port - I think the site is in Russian, but the output of DIG is in english.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:05 PM

Sunday, January 26, 2003

SC4 Page Update

I've published the first half a dozen pages on SimCity 4, including the cheat codes and information on developing custom regions.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:00 PM